Feedback Request: Activity buttons/icons, preferences?

Just a quick question: what are people’s general preferences in terms of the buttons/icons/whatever related to actions in MMOs? Do you prefer more abstract buttons, like those in City of Heroes…

where colors and geometry hint at the functionality, or more picturesque buttons, like those in EQ2 and many other games…

I’m starting in on some buttons for my own little experiments, and I’d like to get some sense as to preferences. I’m not sure how much choice I really have, in the long run… the more activity options incorporated into the design, the more complex the buttons will get… but it’s still useful info.

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I think that if the icons/buttons are well done, they should be doing both at the same time. I think WoW has done the best job of balancing these two with EQ2 close behind. CoH is very good for functionality so you know almost exactly what it is you are doing, same with Ryzom. I would put guild wars at the top of the list for abstract since they are usually just images of people in certain positions or amotions. While you can sort of figure out what they mean, it can be tough at times and you basically have to memorize them (though you do with all of them in any game anyways over time, its just not as urgent most of the time.) Hope that helps.

One of my worries is that I simply don’t have sufficient artistic talent to create decent icons in the WoW/EQ2/etc style. However, even _I_ can draw circles and arrows, and arrange them in different ways… but then the issue becomes having enough combinations to effectively express all the options I’d want to include. Ah well, I’ve gotta give it a try, at least.

@JuJutsu: Gratz on making 20 without a death in LotRO, btw. Not an easy task…

@Kanthalos: another blog that needs to go on the blogroll, I see. Hopefully I’ll have time this weekend to go through your previous posts. That suggestion of Cameron’s of a mega-MMO-blog aggregator (kind of) looks ever more palatable…

Thanks :) Yeah, I was trying to come up with an idea concerning that, but the best I can come up with is a sort of RSS-Feed backed forums that would either require an intense dedication, support from multiple authors/contributors, or a lot of coding that is way over my head, hehe.

@Kanthalos: I’ve looked into it as well. I can’t figure out how to best integrate with each individual blog. I actually found some simple RSS feed reader code that could probably serve as a foundation for a back-end. Have a set of special purpose XHTML tags or attributes that the feed reader could parse out of the text of each post to create the connections, a fairly simple back-end database to create connections… but how to integrate with the vast variety of different blog layouts? Top of screen menu bar in a frame? An AJAX-powered “widget” of sorts that each blogger could place as desired?

Plus, I’m already juggling too many projects at once. Sigh.

@Aaron: I keep going back and forth on that, I admit. I was working on some basic buttons for techniques under a single skill (a rudimentary combat style) just earlier tonight. The initial tier of actions included: a base combat stance, a base swing attack, a base blocking parry reaction, a base deflection parry reaction, an “aiming” accuracy adjustment, and a “roll with the blow” damage mitigation adjustment.

Long story short, I haven’t even gotten beyond creating the basic “newbie” options, no distinctions within each particular theme yet, and I’m starting to have issues creating icons that are distinctive enough that they don’t seem identical at first glance. I only got to spend about an hour on it, admittedly, but it was not an encouraging sign. Detail may be the only way I get the level of distinction I’ll need for my ideas… other designs may not have that issue, tho.

It’s alright for some icons to be detailed pictures while others are symbols. The symbols then just have to be more of a picture, like the Saints symbol; kind of like #3 of the EQ2 icons above (a clear foreground and background).

I prefer picturesque ones as they tend to blend well into the game fantasy and related lore. However, I don’t think it really matters since no matter how obvious or senseless the icons look, it doesn’t take long to be able to identify them, as long as each of them bears a certain distinct trademark.

@Aaron: I agree, and I think, if I refrain from having too much detail, I can actually pull off some icons in the style of #3 even with my limited skills. “Backlit” images, limited but varied colors, I might be able to do a decent job on a fair number of those. We’ll see… I’ll get a set done and see what people think.

@Mythokia: I hope so. I’ve heard people complain about the LotRO icons at times, for example, but I’ve never really gotten a good feel as to what it was that was bothering them, nor how important it really was. That’s the kind of thing that prompted my question in the first place, actually. Anyway, thank you for stopping by, and offering your input. Much appreciated…

In most games (if not all), the same set of icons remain consistent throughout the levels, ie. a level 10 fireball has a similar icon as a level 1 fireball, which is why it isn’t too hard for the player to get accustomed to it after the initial few days of playing.

While we’re on topic of picturesque vs generic icons, another similar issue would be the use of simple vs “lore-influenced” skill names, such as simply calling a skill that recovers the player’s HP “Heal” (Lineage 2) or something more complex like “Nature’s Embrace” (Everquest 2).

For me, that one is a little easier, since I’m shooting for a somewhat generic system, so I won’t be getting creative with the names. I agree, in the wider question, that is an important decision to made as well.

Lore-influenced names irritate me at times, simply because they can be less than descriptive about what the skill will actually accomplish. However, that is more a matter of poor naming technique than a strike against lore-influenced names as a concept.

I agree, colors make a huge difference for me too. One of my pet peeves with the original SWG interface was the relative dearth of color in the interface elements… the icons were almost bewildering at first.

The one concern I have with being too dependent on color-coding is trying to accommodate color-blindness. Anyone have a quick link to a program or utility that can display a picture or screen showing how it looks under varying types of color-blindness? I remember running across a link to something like that probably 2 years ago or so, but I seem to have lost/buried it.